[Legion] Terryn's guide to Affliction Warlock

[Deleted]

Maybe this'll be the "Affliction nerf" that everyone is convinced is coming.

It's a huge nerf. They cut our shard resource generation by 40%, which means a lot less UA's, which is by far our single biggest damage source

[SpikeySquad]

It's a huge nerf. They cut our shard resource generation by 40%, which means a lot less UA's, which is by far our single biggest damage source

Unless I am missing something they only cut the return from Soul Conduit by 40% which is so random anyhow. Unless you are also meaning the loss of the 4 set. To be honest I actually like somewhat of a slower play style than I have now with my gear and the belt. We don't know what the T20 will be yet.

So yes as far as I am aware our regular shard regeneration has not been affected. I don't mind Effigy (and if anything it smooths things out for me) but on some bosses and yes dungeons it is impractical. However, with such a nerf to SC it could actually be worth casting Effigy more than once now if fight calls for it.

In dungeons I don't even think it will be that obvious because most of the time if you don't have enough shards then you just put another Agony out. Sure on single target mobs/bosses you will be limited but as we can start, most of them, on high souls it will be still be more than fine in my opinion.

[Deleted]

WellI would say that given that every shard you spend will have a 40% lower chance of being refunded that's a pretty hefty nerf in shard generation. Soul Effigy is a really shit thing to use in dungeons, it's bad enough on raid bosses but on dungeon bosses? Oh let me cast Soul Effigy and get my dots up and running and oh my the boss is dead already cos everyone and their mom did their millions of dps burst windows and already killed it. Effigy has no use other than a boss, the nerf to Conduit will cut into everything.

And this is all before we lose our T19 shard generation bonus. In fact I suspect that the Conduit nerf has at least as much owing to bringing shard generation between Condut and Effigy into line in Tomb as anything, because Effigy will proc a lot less shards without the T19 4-set bonus.

I wouldn;t mind Effigy but the implementation is so garbage, it's just plain dumb that the thing doesn;t follow us around, it shouldn;t have a cast time at all, or at least we should be able to pre-cast it without aggroing. There's really no logical reason for added another slab of ramp to a spec that already has too much.

There's a very good reason almost every top-parsing afflock uses Conduit despite Effigy being better on paper. It's horrible to use, it actively works against Malefic Grasp and it's useless for anything other than tunneling one target, wheras a lucky Conduit shard proc can really help if you've switched targets.

Kinda ironic that they are once again pushing us into Effigy, given the widespread loathing of it, but like I said: it wouldn;t suprise me at all if in TOS with the T20 armour, the extra shard proc rate by Agony on Effigy works out at the same as Conduit at 12%. Folks are failing to see how much lower shard procs will be without the T19 armour which is incredibly strong, whereas the T20 bonuses are just crap. They're totally centred around Drain Soul, they will fuck up our optimal Malefic Grasp rotations which are based around partial Drain cycles and the Haste buff only lasts five seconds IF you can manage an uninterrupted Drain cycle to proc it. lol.

[Unlockmyhrt]

WellI would say that given that every shard you spend will have a 40% lower chance of being refunded that's a pretty hefty nerf in shard generation. Soul Effigy is a really shit thing to use in dungeons, it's bad enough on raid bosses but on dungeon bosses? Oh let me cast Soul Effigy and get my dots up and running and oh my the boss is dead already cos everyone and their mom did their millions of dps burst windows and already killed it. Effigy has no use other than a boss, the nerf to Conduit will cut into everything.

And this is all before we lose our T19 shard generation bonus. In fact I suspect that the Conduit nerf has at least as much owing to bringing shard generation between Condut and Effigy into line in Tomb as anything, because Effigy will proc a lot less shards without the T19 4-set bonus.

I wouldn;t mind Effigy but the implementation is so garbage, it's just plain dumb that the thing doesn;t follow us around, it shouldn;t have a cast time at all, or at least we should be able to pre-cast it without aggroing. There's really no logical reason for added another slab of ramp to a spec that already has too much.

There's a very good reason almost every top-parsing afflock uses Conduit despite Effigy being better on paper. It's horrible to use, it actively works against Malefic Grasp and it's useless for anything other than tunneling one target, wheras a lucky Conduit shard proc can really help if you've switched targets.

Kinda ironic that they are once again pushing us into Effigy, given the widespread loathing of it, but like I said: it wouldn;t suprise me at all if in TOS with the T20 armour, the extra shard proc rate by Agony on Effigy works out at the same as Conduit at 12%. Folks are failing to see how much lower shard procs will be without the T19 armour which is incredibly strong, whereas the T20 bonuses are just crap. They're totally centred around Drain Soul, they will fuck up our optimal Malefic Grasp rotations which are based around partial Drain cycles and the Haste buff only lasts five seconds IF you can manage an uninterrupted Drain cycle to proc it. lol.

Affi belt might be used when ran with conduit, might soften the blow a little bit

[Liarparadox]

I wouldn;t mind Effigy but the implementation is so garbage...

I'm in favour of finding out who at blizz gave us this POS and having that person fired. Then fire everyone who has sat on their asses and not fixed effigy. Dang it, it'll end up being the whole team

[Cheze]

effigy's fucking terrible, I'm not excited about this at all (specially for m+)

[Rahmula]

I just wish effigy didn't take up my focus target. I'd love it if it had its own special frame that I could keep track of what's on it.

That's the only problem I have with it though.

[SpikeySquad]

I just wish effigy didn't take up my focus target. I'd love it if it had its own special frame that I could keep track of what's on it.

That's the only problem I have with it though.

Yeah agreed with this. For such a low priority target it should not take such a prominent place.

So does anyone already know how much the Concordance proc adds? I'm tempted after getting all the old extra damage traits to go to an offpsec but not sure how much I will be hurting myself on my main.

[App]

A 30% nerf to Malefic grasp....

[Lucrece]

Paired with the fixes to Fatal Echoes that is going to merit some serious buff to the baseline damage of dots.

Also a direct loss to priority add damage as 2 UA+MG is going to burst for a lot less, unless they somehow make haunt relevant and you can take that for priority adds without wrecking your sustained boss DPS.

[Jellospally]

I mean they did say previous before 7.2 even launched their plan was to make aff have the ability to multidot better. Imo just see how shit changes. We can get concordance on at least 2 specs before tomb off world quests only so w/e

[Sunlighthell]

Paired with the fixes to Fatal Echoes that is going to merit some serious buff to the baseline damage of dots.

Also a direct loss to priority add damage as 2 UA+MG is going to burst for a lot less, unless they somehow make haunt relevant and you can take that for priority adds without wrecking your sustained boss DPS.

Buff to dots will not happen. Because it's Blizzard. Change to completely retarded t20 bonus will not happen because it's blizzard. Affliction is destined to heavy nerfs without buffs to compensate. Instead we will get a new shards bits system for affliction to make resource generation even more idiotic and non predictive, we will not get any improvents on ramp up with agony (instead we will get more ramp up with MG nerf), we will get SC nerf without overhauling PS or effigy (the way blizzard balance talents for classes other than rogue/warrior/druid/mage is make all good talent in row complete shit like other 2 ones). Once again. Buff to dots damage outside of MG will not happed, or it will be 1-3% increase which is meaningless. Affliction is the only one class with ALL of it damage baked into damage over time spells, yet our dots without MG are the weakest ones. I bet that people and blizzard will once again say that "It's only early 7.2.5 ptr things will change" but they say this BS every new patch.

[Liarparadox]

Buff to dots will not happen. Because it's Blizzard. Change to completely retarded t20 bonus will not happen because it's blizzard.

Well, it's happening.

[Inshabel]

AND they're removing Effigy, paired with the Destro changes it feels like christmas, now I just hope they come through on Demo.

[Sunlighthell]

Well, it's happening.

Glad I was wrong, but still, I remember "doubling down on strengths" very well so my expectations are not that high.

[dakalro]

Damn, I'm really annoyed they're removing Effigy. It was good having an option to use DoTs as filler instead of MG. And without MG being compulsory other DoTs could have been used on the Effigy maybe.

They took the easy way out, I enjoyed Effigy where it was usable.

We have conduit for people that don't like to mess with multiple targets in single target, and it's as nice as it gets for that (extra shards, no effort).

[Inshabel]

Damn, I'm really annoyed they're removing Effigy. It was good having an option to use DoTs as filler instead of MG. And without MG being compulsory other DoTs could have been used on the Effigy maybe.

They took the easy way out, I enjoyed Effigy where it was usable.

We have conduit for people that don't like to mess with multiple targets in single target, and it's as nice as it gets for that (extra shards, no effort).

Just wait and see what they replace it with.

[Count Zero]

Damn, I'm really annoyed they're removing Effigy. It was good having an option to use DoTs as filler instead of MG. And without MG being compulsory other DoTs could have been used on the Effigy maybe.

They took the easy way out, I enjoyed Effigy where it was usable.

We have conduit for people that don't like to mess with multiple targets in single target, and it's as nice as it gets for that (extra shards, no effort).

This is one instance where I'm glad they're taking the easy way out. If it's quicker for them to design a new talent than to fix the issues with SE, I'd rather they just do that so we can get to tuning.

[Liarparadox]

Glad I was wrong, but still, I remember "doubling down on strengths" very well so my expectations are not that high.

Yah i mean i don't blame you in the slightest for the pessimism. But I agree, it's nice sometimes to be wrong.

- - - Updated - - -

Damn, I'm really annoyed they're removing Effigy.

4 possibilities.
You lie.
You love pain and misery.
You work for a competing MMO game and want to see WOW fail.
You don't play a lock; you play another class and wish us the worst possible iteration of a talent onto locks cause you want them all to die in a fire.

[muto]

AND they're removing Effigy, paired with the Destro changes it feels like christmas, now I just hope they come through on Demo.

Good riddance. I think maybe 1% of Warlocks actually liked that garbage talent,